The logic is certainly not tortuous. It is actually pretty straight forward if you give the matter a little thought.

How is it contradictory? If you are going to make a statement like that you should provide a little reasoning. Unsupported proclamations like that simply point out that you have no actual cogent objection.

The comment about parsimony is somewhat correct but not entirely. But parsimony is not really a natural phenomenon that can be relied on in the absence of experiment. Before the relevant experiments could be done, Newtonian mechanics would be considered more parsimonious than quantum mechanics. Scientifically one could have said that QM was an unneeded complication, but it was the truth. Be careful with that principle. I have seen scientists use it in arguments and make massive mistakes by extrapolating into untested areas with that as their only resource. In fact, in some sense success in navigating those kinds of problems was a key in my career advancement and the reason why I went from a newly hired PhD in ChemE to a VP of R&D in seven years in a company where I had no previous connections or relations. Those kinds of errors can cost millions of dollars. Your error could cost a lot more.

I'm reminded a lot of Pascal's wager here. What you originally said seems contradictory in that you're arguing that god might have created a situation where there cannot be evidence of his own existence, and yet we know that people believe in god. So, how do they come to this belief? They have to admit that they believe without evidence (tortuous), or they contradict the claim that there can't be any evidence by attempting to provide some (contradictory and dishonest). I don't think that this is a false dichotomy, there is either something that can be considered evidence, or there isn't.

Or, I guess that the initial part of that, that people believe despite a lack of evidence and/or without a requirement for evidence, could be called 'faith' but that seems like making yourself believe until you actually believe, or, as I saw it put recently, 'fake it 'til you make it'. I find that intellectually dishonest and utterly baffling because there is literally nothing, no god that I couldn't make myself believe in (if it is in fact possible at all to make oneself believe something) using that methodology and it provides no reasonable justification for a belief in anything at all.

Aren't more likely options that there is a god and there is evidence to support that, or that there aren't any gods?

Parsimony is not intended to disprove or prove a model, it is ideally to be applied when you need to choose between two models that offer identical explanatory power. In the real world that we actually inhabit it is applied when you need to choose between two models that offer near identical explanatory power for given conditions.

This is why Newtonian mechanics is still preferable to QM for the majority of practical applications. Which of them is "true" is irrelevant; their application is instrumental not fundamental. As a chemical engineer you surely know this better than most. For example Dalton's law might not be precise enough for many applications, but given the right conditions it is superior in its simplicity.

But all that being said, I still think it is a mistake to gloss over these prayer studies. They don't disprove "God" (nor do I think such a thing was ever in their scope), but they certainly seem to indicate that prayer does not have effects we could not find without prayer.

But placebos have an effect. It actually accomplishes something. Even if the patient knows it's a placebo it accomplishes something. So even if prayer can't "beat the placebo drug" (which in this case is what, exactly?) it can't possibly be right to say it has no effect.

No, that is not true. Of course one can't categorically say that placebos have no effect, but placebos are chosen because they are believed to have no effect. Or rather no effect relevant to the trial.

A placebo trial can have effect, but that doesn't mean the placebo has effect. For example if you give fake pills instead of some given medicine, any change in medical condition is not generally ascribed to the fake pill, but rather the trial itself.

I'm still trying to square your explanation of your use of language in the context of "wrongful (but popular) use of terminology" category. If someone is simply praying for something, there is no trial. It's not part of a study. But something happens anyway. It's not being measured against anything. There's just an effect.

At this point I'm merely pointing out your misconception of placebo effect, as they are likely to cause huge misunderstandings: Placebo effect does not mean the placebo itself has an effect (merely that the placebo trial has an effect) and it does not mean the cause of the effect is necessarily unknown.

When someone says "it is only a placebo effect", what they are essentially saying is that the effect is likely not caused by the proposed independent variable. In a hypothetical prayer study, for example, we should then expect groups being told they are being prayed for to display roughly the same effects, regardless if they are prayed for or not.

Think about how you would set up an experiment testing prayer. There are a few methods I can think of, and all are prone to fail an honest examination.

When you start setting up parameters, you skew the results, since you're telling people what to pray for, when to pray, for who, etc. It's not a genuine prayer if it's forced in this way.

The other way could be to just gather the results of patients that were prayed for, versus those who were not prayed for, but here you still don't know the sincerity of those who prayed, their motives, their faith, etc.

Even if you could find the best way to test this, your conclusions are only based on immediate results, not long term results, or any peripheral results. Prayer is not only answered in yes or no answers, it's often impossible to measure to begin with. Remember that biblically, there are explicit times when prayers are not answered, such as when you have selfish motives, or are not treating your spouse well, etc. All these things will naturally be overlooked by any studies.

I didn't follow any of the studies posted earlier, but I guarantee they suffer from similar problems.

I'm honestly confused by what your complaint is here. God is pleased when you trust him. It's no different than when you are pleased that your kids listen to you about things which you are more knowledgeable about.

What is it about God being pleased about your trusting him that you find so unpleasant? That's all that faith is, you're getting caught up in "proving" your faith, which I've explained it is not necessary, but is often an interchangeable concept.

Not interrupting because ive just been skimming the prayer thing. But my Church did pretty much exactly this with the lords prayer and many other prayers, most do afaik. We were told when to pray, let us pray, and what prayer to say....And it was genuine, at least on my part.

Your use of the word "cause" here is dicey, and I disagree with it. You want to define "cause" as something like "participated in the study." But in a very real sense, that "cause" is too vague to be something that we would say "we know what's causing this to happen."

In the colloquial sense, what they are saying is that they *believe* that the effect is not caused by the proposed independent variable. But that's a pure speculative position, and it fits exactly as what I described earlier:

Couldnt any effect of prayer also be put down to the "scatter gun" effect? If I went around saying to enough people "I will heal you by cleaning your shoe" and then cleaned their shoe, I would be sure to "cure" some of them.

I haven't said we know the cause, I have merely explained that "placebo effect" does not imply that the cause is unknown like you stated. I have clearly stated twice now that something being a placebo effect in itself tells us nothing about whether the cause is known or unknown.

There is also plenty of good research on the nature of placebo effects in medical trials. Like most things in medicine there are so many variables that exact knowledge is hard to achieve, but if that is the objection then we must disregard medical trials in general.

Certainly, and something you often see in placebo groups in medical trials is that they feel better, but aren't actually improving physically. It is plausible this would also affect people who believe in prayer, giving room for many false negatives. So "non-clinical tests" of prayer has some issues.

It is also why placebo control groups are more difficult to defend ethically these days, especially in patients with severe conditions. Giving people false hope and then breaking it can be a tough blow for the patient.

I wasnt meaning the shoe cleaning thing as being a placebo, though I guess it might be. I just meant that, if I did it enough times, I would be bound to hit on people who just got better naturally anyway, and could then claim that my shoe cleaning cured them.

Yeah, I've seen this as well, but presumably you're attending the event/session with the intention of praying, not in conducting an experiment. When I pray about things I'm interested in, or lead to concern myself with, I'll naturally be more passionate about it, than if just told to pray for something.

Like neeeel mentioned about the scatter gun, you can't really know if something was due to prayer, or just happened naturally. Conversely, when you don't see any results, you can conclude that prayer doesn't work, but not all prayer is such that you're meant to see the results right away in a tangible way as to be able to check it off the list, it's why these studies are not great at deducing anything, both for or against.

Sure. There are lots of things that are possible. My point is just about how we label things.

Can you cite an instance in which the "cause" of the placebo effect is "known"? I'm interested in getting your explanation of what you mean.

You're going back and forth between the incorrect common usage and the more technical usage. Pick one, and we'll stick with that.

My underlying claims:

1) If there were (in reality) a small effect of prayer that people would attribute it to something like a placebo effect.
2) People in reality label the effects of prayer as a placebo effect.

I'm sure you could figure it out on your own with wikipedia, if you were really interested.

Anyway, the most classic and known cases are alcohol expectancy experiments where subjects seemingly behave drunkly even when imbibing fake alcohol. Here is a typical example of such a study that offers an explanation as to why: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pha/2/4/319/.

Certainly, and if you actually believed in your own healing power it would be even more convincing.

Unlike you, I prefer not to argue against arguments nobody is making. I'll wait for you to actually make your argument and then address it directly.

Right, so you're going in the direction I basically expected you to go. You're trying to hide your admitted "wrongful but popular" use of terminology with proper use of terminology. Before we proceed, I would like you to pick a side and stick with it.

Are you using "placebo effect" as the technical term or are you using it as the wrongful but popular one? Your swapping back and forth between the two is muddying up your position.

Incidentally, if we're going to use a technical definition, I'd prefer this one:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/files...podd-2004a.pdf

I'm hiding my wrongful use of terminology by stating it was wrongful and using it properly?

What next? Will I hide my greed by giving away all my belongings? Hide my thieving ways by never stealing?

Have fun under the bridge over muddied waters.

Pretty much. Changing definitions in the middle of a conversation is not intellectually honest. You admitted you used the word wrongly, but then your defense of your position comes from trying to use the word rightly. But that invalidates what preceded.

I've addressed your original claims as stated and you've not addressed my counter-claims.

So, what you're saying is that anytime we're asked to pray, and given a specific thing to pray for it's much more likely to fail? Then why does it happen so very often? Congregations are often asked to pray for specific issues. The entire Islamic faith is told what to pray, for, when to pray and exactly what to say. Are you saying that this somehow lessens or negates any effect that those prayers have?

Are you also saying that in the study I linked that the people who were ill that the study participants prayed for, were ignored by god because he doesn't like 'parameters'? How does one tell genuine prayer from whatever you think the type of prayer is that doesn't work? Are you saying that prayer can work except for any time you ever try to actually show that it works? Even that seems contradictory. This line of reasoning seems pretty desperate NR.


It's very different because I'm human and I do need affirmation, I do need to feel needed and have my authority, my opinions and my lifestyle validated. I am needy and petty. Are you saying that your god is too, that he actually needs your displays of faith?

It is dishonest to admit one used terminology wrongfully and correct it? Voluntarily and without anyone pointing it out, I might add.

Regardless, I wrote a long reply which I discarded. Someone who stoops to such labyrinthine conspiracies to make his case, is not here for reason.

Your own unaddressed misinterpretations are really all that is necessary here: That placebo effect somehow implies "unknown cause" or "caused by the placebo". They even contradict eachother! They speak of someone who does not know anything about clinical trials but still has strong opinions about interpreting clinical studies.

For starters, prayer does not always need to be answered in the way you expect, so it's not always measurable, which is a point that will always be ignored. Had Jesus prayed that his life be spared, without adding in the caveat, "not as I will, but as you will", his prayer would have looked like a complete failure. It was because he understood the situation that he prayed as he did.

Aside from that, some prayers are more effective than others. This should be fairly obvious. If I pray for my sick mother, or you pray for my sick mother, whose prayer do you believe will be more genuine? Pretty obvious answer. This is also something that is ignored.

I didn't read that study. I can say that simply because people are not healed, doesn't necessarily mean they are ignored by God, no more than Christ was ignored by God in my previous example, BUT, the bible does outline times when prayer will not work, so yes, there are certain parameters.

As for prayer not working when you attempt to show that it works, is itself self-contradictory, because prayer is an act of faith. How can you perform an act of faith that attempts to discover if such faith will work?

It's not that different, because we are dealing with love. If you didn't love your children, you wouldn't care what they did. God is supposed to be love, and naturally wants us to love him and to trust him. Such things are pleasing to him, it's not petty. I likewise wouldn't say that it's petty for you to want your kids to love you and to trust you. It could be rooted in pettiness, but doesn't need to be.